Cool cars and gearheads at L.A. auto show

Members of the press surround the new Fiat 500 during Media Day at the Los Angeles Auto Show on Wednesday. Close to 1,000 vehicles will be on display during the car show.

Juan Carlo / Star staff

I was a stranger in a foreign land, surrounded by gearheads and cars bathed in colored lights and hidden from view under purple and Valentine-red sheets.

Struggling actresses working as spokeswomen models coaxed people to visit Ford cars. Wonks discussed the intricacies of piston-cooling jets. Concept cars that will never see the marketplace were unveiled. So were dozens of makes and models that will soon be in dealers’ lots.

I was at Wednesday’s media preview for the Los Angeles Auto Show that opens to the public Friday. There were close to 1,000 cars on display and even more media types and people from the auto industry. They know cars. All the auto knowledge I own can fit in a Smart car — with room left for luggage.

I drive a 2008 Toyota Corolla that whistles when the engine starts. I bought it because it was a good deal and will hold up even when I ignore the maintenance — a tendency that probably explains the whistle.

And yet I hung out at the edge of a cluster of people waiting for a snow-white sheet to be yanked away from an automotive jewel. The seconds until the unveiling were clocked on two large flat screens. Music played, segueing at the moment of truth to a drum roll that shook the floor.

There in front of us was the Jaguar C-X75 electric car. Silver-gray with sleek lines and aerodynamic curves, it can do more than 200 mph. It’s a four-wheel drive.

“And wait for it ,” said Jaguar official Mike O’Driscoll with a drama that typified the day. “This has twin micro gas engines.”

Louise Roe, a television host and fashion journalist who emceed the unveiling, called it the sexiest car she has ever seen.

It looked good. It looked green, in terms of energy. It also looked expensive.

So I asked about the price and was told there isn’t one because it’s a concept car that won’t be sold. But after hemming and hawing amid promises of anonymity, someone from Jaguar floated what the price might be if it were ever sold:

$350,000.

The revelations were happening left and right, with more than 50 cars set to make their debuts during the auto show.

There was the new four-door Ford Focus and the new five-door Ford Focus, both expected to get nearly 40 miles per gallon and sell for less than $20,000. There was the cherry-red sports car that will be the first Fiat marketed in the United States in more than 20 years.

That Fiat Sport 500 unveiling required a light stage, a separate sound area and a guy on a raised platform piloting an Ikegami camera to record every image.

“They spend a lot of money on these things,” he told me.

Jaguar wasn’t the only one going electric. There’s the Chevy Volt, Nissan’s Leaf and dozens of other new cars that are either pure electric, hybrids or involve fuel cells.

The unveilings grew old quickly, with each company pounding its chest about innovations and advantages over competitors. But the cars were pretty cool.

After someone showed me how to open the door, I sat in a 2011 gray-black Aston Martin N420 Roadster, one of 420 made in the world. It felt kind of weird sitting in the leather seats of a $157,000 convertible that can see the fast side of 180 mph. It had gears controlled by small levers on the steering wheel.

I asked sales consultant Jennifer Isaac if she checks to see who’s driving an Aston Martin.

“Absolutely,” she said. “First, of course, I look at the car.”

I learned a lot. I learned the men with feather dusters spread out in the exhibition halls are on a mission against fingerprints. I learned spokeswomen models see car shows and other trade shows as a bridge between acting and modeling gigs.

And I learned that some of the coolest things are shown on the floor beneath the main exhibit halls. That’s where I found the 1965 Chrysler Imperial with two machine guns mounted on its hood. It’s a Green Hornet, one of 29 models built for the movie of the same name.

Near the Imperial was an orange Tango. It’s an electric car that’s more than 8 feet long but only 39 inches wide. It’s about half the size of a normal car and is designed to scoot between lanes, passing cars like a motorcycle.

“I lane split all the time,” said the car’s creator, Rick Woodbury, adding that if there were more cars like it, traffic jams would disappear. He blamed the congestion on all the wasted space in cars — “the empty seats.”

But my favorite thing at the auto show wasn’t a car. It was a three-wheel reclining bike called a Mobo Shift. The people showing it let me pedal up and down the aisles, past Smart cars and convertibles.